(Image source from: Vijay Mallya to lose his Kingfisher brand})

Vijay Mallya may soon lose his Kingfisher brand. Lenders to the grounded Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) have begun the procedure to sell brands associated with the carrier.

Kingfisher brands sale has been initiated by SBICAP Trustee Co Ltd (STCL), which is a subsidiary of SBI Capital Markets Ltd.

The Kingfisher Airlines' trademarks that have been put up for bidding includes "fly the good times", "fly kingfisher", "flying models", "funliner", "flying bird device" and "kingfisher".

Banks have decided to sell Kingfisher brand inorder to recover the huge amount of loan it had lent to KFA. The airlines owes Rs 8,000 crore to banks. Sale of its pledged properties and other assets would amount to only about Rs 1,000 crore. So banks are now hoping to recover at least a fraction of the loans given to the company by the sale of its brand. A few years ago the Kingfisher brand was valued to be about Rs 3,000 crore.

Since 2012 Kingfisher airlines has been grounded and its licence has also been suspended.

However, sale of Kingfisher brands is not expected to impact Vijay Mallya's flagship beer brand that goes by the same name. The beer brand and the airlines brand have been registered under different names. So sale of brand Kingfisher will not impact the beer brand directly.

According to reports, Heineken, the Dutch giant which is the largest shareholder in United Breweries, is concerned about the sale of brand 'Kingfisher' (airline).

SBICAP has initiated the process for the sale of KFA trademarks on its website by inviting bidders interested in the taglines.

On March 31, 2013 Kingfisher Airlines had losses to the tune of Rs 16,023.5 crore, while the net worth of the company stood at minus Rs 12,919.8 crore.

(AW: Pratima Tigga)